How far does the Anshim Jeonse app go before I sign a jeonse contract?
I have been in Seoul for three years on an F-2 visa. I am on a monthly rental now and looking at jeonse places, where the whole deposit sits with the landlord. With all the deposit fraud cases in the news, I want to check before signing whether the landlord owes back taxes and what claims already rank ahead of mine on the building.
How much of that does the Anshim Jeonse app actually show, and where do I go for the parts it does not cover?
1 Answer
The Anshim Jeonse app will show you market prices, the jeonse-to-sale ratio, auction outcome statistics for the area and whether a deposit guarantee can be issued on the property. What it will not do is tell you which claims already sit on that specific building's register, or whether the landlord owes back taxes. Those two you check elsewhere. The app is run by the Korea Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG), and the list of things it covers has grown with each revision, so check the current screen rather than an old write-up.
Prior claims are read off the property register. You can view it at the Internet Registry Office (iros.go.kr) using the address alone, and what you are looking for is any mortgage (근저당권), provisional seizure or trust registration. The test is simple arithmetic: add the existing secured claims to your deposit, and if the total is close to or above the property's market value, you may not get your money back if it goes to auction. Compare the app's valuation against actual transaction prices rather than trusting one number.
Unpaid taxes became checkable by tenants without the landlord's consent in 2023. Once you meet the conditions that apply after signing, you can inspect national tax arrears at a district tax office — confirm the current requirements and procedure with the National Tax Service (nts.go.kr) — while local tax arrears are checked separately at the relevant city or district office.
After signing, sequence matters more than paperwork volume. File your move-in report (전입신고), which you can do through Government24 (gov.kr); your opposing power takes effect from midnight of the following day. You also need a fixed date stamp (확정일자) for priority in repayment. So handle both on the day you pay the balance, and write a special clause into the contract barring the landlord from registering a new mortgage until the day after that date.
The most practical defence is checking before you sign whether a jeonse deposit return guarantee can be issued at all. Besides the Korea Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG), the Korea Housing Finance Corporation and SGI Seoul Guarantee offer products. If a property is refused cover, the refusal itself is the warning you were looking for.